La Douleur Exquise!

Translation......The exquisite pain! For several years now I have wondered, are women addicted to this, not only in relationships, but in life? Do we revel in the pain of what we cannot attain? I’m sure like me, thousands of women all over the world asked themselves the same question after watching the episode “La Douleur Exquise!” off Sex and the City’s Season Two. Do we really think a relationship has to be hard work to be successful? Although, in reality women are suffering extensive abuse and it is a great deal more than their partner forgetting to call for a few days…

Nowadays, so many women stay in relationships which are abusive or somewhat destructive, and for what? Why do we women feel the need to put ourselves through it?

Recent statistics show that a woman in a violent relationship is beaten on average 35 times before she will go and seek help. Domestic violence constitutes 18% of all murders in this country and official figures show that almost half of all murders are committed by a partner or an ex-partner. 100, 000 women every year will need to seek medical treatment for the injuries they receive at home from an abusive partner. These numbers are terrifying and will continue to rise if the women in these relationships do not get help. What is even more alarming is what these women are putting themselves through.

A number of women may end up with a few cuts and bruises or a scratch here and there; more than enough to send alarm bells ringing. However, when you compare these women with a great number of other women, they are the lucky ones. Punching, kicking, chocking, cutting, burning, scalding, stabbing, raping and attempting to drown their partner is all to familiar for other women. What’s more, the abuse does not stop there. Emotional and psychological abuse can also be a factor in countless relationships, except this type of abuse is a more subtle form of violence. This can include humiliation in front of others: telling her she is useless, stupid, ugly or fat, telling her she is a hopeless mother/housewife, making threats against her, keeping her isolated from friends or family, preventing her from sleeping and making distorted ‘justifications’ for the abuse to make her feel it is her fault and that she deserves it. Economical/Financial abuse can also be an awful type of abuse and it can be a very powerful form of control. It can include denying her money for food, clothes, rent or mortgage, herself and even stealing her money.

So again I ask myself WHY? Escape from domestic violence can at best seem difficult and at worst impossible. It is not an easy choice to give up on or stop loving someone, especially if you have committed your life to them. Many women would also have children by these men, which can also be a factor as to why they stay. Speaking out and seeking help about domestic violence is extremely difficult. In our culture, women are regarded as responsible for the balance of family life. When things have gone wrong, women fear that it will be seen as their fault and will often see the failure as their own. Women in general will give mind boggling reasons why they stay. These reasons can be broken into different categories depending on what frightens the woman the most about leaving the relationship.

Reason one. ‘I am still hopeful!’ The woman will begin to believe that love conquers all and will not leave since she is still in love with him. She may believe that the violence and control is not really her partner’s true nature and that she has a special bond with her partner, to which she will never find with anyone else. The woman may think she can help her partner over come this and she may refuse to leave, as it may be seen as she has failed. Then comes total denial. She will stay as she wants her relationship to go back to the way it used to be and believes the abuse is not all that bad.

Reason two. ‘I’m afraid of being alone!’ She is used to life with her partner and does not want any change. She believes she will never find any one better and she does not want to raise her children alone. All her confidence has gone and she feels mentally beaten down and that she can not make it on her own. Again, in total denial and so she will think she needs him.

Reason three. ‘I’m bound by my sense of responsibility!’ She feels she owes it to her partner, as a good woman stands by her man. She refuses to give up, as she cannot bear the responsibility of the relationship failing. It is partly her fault, she feels the responsibility is hers for her partner’s behaviour and finally, again total denial, She can’t leave him, as he is not well and so needs her.

Certain women seem all to ready to forgive men. They are willing to pretend to themselves that they do not care about certain behaviours. They believe in second chances. Then the third, forth and fifth ones. These women gradually become immune to the negative behaviours of men, to the point where it is acceptable. How did these women get themselves in the situation to start? These violent relationships must have been destructive from the start. A destructive relationship is just ill fated. You should get out before you become attached or before like you’ve read, when violence starts, it may not always become a factor. Never the less, do you really want to stay around to find out?

You can be aware you are in a destructive relationship when you find yourself arguing over petty things and censoring or filtering what you say to your partner. If you have to adjust your personality or you feel like your walking on egg shells, essentially that relationship is over. If you can’t say pretty much what you want, when you want and how you want you need to acknowledge than something is seriously wrong with the chemistry and meeting of minds, because what you are experiencing is the self censorship that comes with a compromised trust you don’t trust the other person with your values, opinions and thoughts. If you want to change certain things about your partner then, again this is not a positive sign for the future. It is not worth staying in a destructive relationship. Neither of you will ever be happy. It can often be very hard to step away from a destructive relationship, especially if you are attached or in love with your partner.

Some women find themselves clinging onto these relationships, simply because they cannot imagine being on their own. But I say to those women, it is better to get out now and face the pain and deal with it and recover, than to always be waiting for it to blow up in your face and to always know that sooner or later you will have to deal with it and it doesn’t get any easier.

In my experience the women who often find themselves in these relationships are the women who jump out of messy relationships and do not give themselves time to heal. They meet someone and jump straight into bed with them without even getting to know them and within no time, they are in another destructive relationship. Ladies you should slow down, take a break, be on your own and discover who you are. And whilst making that discovery, someone happens to walk by and get time to know them. Let’s stop fast forwarding the bonding process. We do not want to keep finding ourselves in ‘bad’ relationships that make us miserable.

In 2005, Social Affairs correspondent Sarah Womack, made the discovery that girls who read fairy tails such as Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast are more likely to stay in destructive relationships as adults believing that things will always turn out for the best. Susan Darker-Smith, a psychotherapist at the University of Derby, said that victims of domestic violence had told her that they believed that “if their love was strong enough, they could change their partner’s behaviour”. Many of these women directly identified with characters in fairy tails. Out of the sixty seven women she had spoken to, between the ages of 16 and 52, sixty-one said they thought they could change their partner through compassion, love and understanding. These women then started to talk about fairy tales and characters within them.

Miss Darker-Smith asked them if there was a particular character that they identified with. The majority of the women said they felt like Cinderella. They had feelings of powerlessness and submissiveness just as Cinderella did. In the Fairy tail, Cinderella is rescued by a prince, which could indicate that these women are incapable of saving themselves. Other women went on to say they feel like Beauty in Beauty and the Beast, where the Beast transforms from an ugly monster when Beauty loves him enough. Miss Darker-Smith goes on to say that overly-romanticised tales “disempowered women”. This is seriously worrying. Women are becoming so deluded, due to no self- esteem and no-self confidence that they are relating to characters in fairy tails and believing that they will also live happy ever after with that partner.

So Ladies, know the signs and get out of this type of relationship before it is too late. There is a thin line between pleasure and pain. As Sex and the City taught us, recognise when the growing pains stop in your relationship and when the pain pains take over. We are being masochists, not optimists if we continue to walk this line in a relationship. We are the sadists if we tie ourselves to these destructive relationships, even though our partner has the whip. So untie yourself. There may not be anything exquisite about it, but at least you’ll be free.